


Survivor: Schwarz

by Sefiru



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Crack, Desert Island, Drugs, Foul Language, Humor, M/M, Message in a bottle, Misuse of Psychic Powers, Misuse of genetic engineering, Mystery, Oral Sex, Snark, mindscape, mindscape sex, psychic powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sefiru/pseuds/Sefiru
Summary: Four psychic assassins who have outlived their usefulness get marooned on a desert island. Hilarity (and smut) ensues. Originally posted on AFF a decade ago.





	1. Worst Hangover Ever

Bright light drove spikes into Schuldig’s eyes, rousing him to consciousness; the accompanying headache made him wish he’d stayed asleep. _Okay, how much did I drink last night?_ He groped muzzily for his blankets and flung them over himself. Then out of nowhere he felt pebbles rain down on him. That wasn’t right; he snapped instantly to full alertness, trying to figure out what was happening.

Something big, apparently. For one thing, he was not lying in his or any other bed, but on a sandy beach. Instead of blankets he had grabbed a handful of sand and thrown it over himself – it only felt like pebbles because of his stupendous hangover. Another more disturbing fact was that he could sense no human minds apart from those of his teammates. Not a soul to be found in all his considerable range. _Now what have we landed ourselves in?_ He groaned and heaved himself upright. Crawford was already up; he had taken off his shoes and socks and was shaking the sand out of his suit jacket. “Good morning, Schuldig.” 

“Screw you. What the fuck is going on?”

“I presume this is our former employers’ response to our disrupting their plans.” He tied his jacket around his shoulders and went on to rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Schuldig flopped back onto the sand, shading his eyes with his forearm. “Great. Fuckers must have drugged us, too.” Marooned on a desert island – yes, complete with coconuts – with three people he couldn’t stand and couldn’t use his powers on. “Just shoot me now.”

“I don’t have my weapons. They seem to have left us only our clothes.”

Well, it wasn’t as if the likes of them had to worry about valid ID – “Shit! My smokes!” Schuldig shot upright again, frantically patting his pockets. Sure enough, both his lighter and cigarettes were gone. And Crawford was looking at him with that so-superior expression on his face. “If you’ve ever thought about quitting, Schuldig, this would be the time.”

“Whatever. Have you found any wild coffee trees here, then?”

Crawford’s face turned sour. “I deserved that. It seems we’ll both go through the joys of withdrawal together.”

That was assuming Schuldig didn’t wring his smug little neck first. The telepath stared out at the sea and resolved to ignore his team leader for as long as possible. About half an hour later Farf came around; he mumbled something to himself and started digging a hole in the sand. Schuldig ignored him as well. Crawford went on to drawing on the beach with a pointed stick. The tide was going out; Schuldig found a pair of fiddler crabs in the mud and prodded their miniscule minds into fighting each other. It was the most entertainment he was going to get around here. Soon after that Nagi finally woke up.

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“What does it look like? We’ve been dumped on Gilligan’s Island with no liquor.”

“No knives,” Farf added, looking into his hole as if he’d expected to find them there.

“No smokes.”

“No computers.”

“No churches.” Farf again.

“No electricity.”

“No showers.”

Crawford clapped his hands for attention. “If you are finished expressing your dissatisfaction, could we start doing something about it? Nagi, come check my numbers, please.” He waved at his sand drawings, which now that Schuldig looked, were a set of equations. Nagi went over to study them; Schuldig rolled his eyes. Only Crawford would think of doing math at a time like this.

“Have you had any grand visions, Oracle?”

“Only vague ones, as the drugs are still affecting me. However, I have Seen that by the end of the day, one of us will make a decision that will affect our entire future.” 

“Oh, the drama.” Schuldig rather liked drama, but only if he was the one causing it. He went back to watching his crabs. Behind him Farf was rocking back and forth, mumbling, “No knives, no knives,” over and over. Uh-oh. He was building up to a full-blown psychotic outburst, and their usual cure of pointing him at a target and standing back wasn’t going to work here. As Schuldig pondered what to do, Crawford walked over and tapped the Irishman’s shoulder.

“Farfarello. If you want a knife here you must make your own.” Farf didn’t seem to hear him, but a little while later he stood up and wandered into the forest. With any luck he’d be eaten by a polar bear. Meanwhile Crawford was talking to Nagi about numbers.

“Your calculations look solid,” the boy said. “But I can’t figure out what they’re for.”

“Using the movement of the sun I’ve estimated our latitude. Once I look at the stars tonight, I should be able to determine our longitude as well.”

“I’m just impressed you can do trig functions in your head,” Nagi added.

“I merely have a good memory. Prodigy, I’m afraid you’re in charge of dinner today.”

“It’ll be sashimi.”

“That’s fine. Come with me, Schuldig, we’re going beachcombing.”

“What? But Hulk Hogan was winning.”

“Your pets will keep. Come along.” Schuldig grumbled and climbed to his feet. He kicked at the sand as he followed Crawford down the shoreline. 

“You know, now that Eszet has ditched us, you can’t order me around anymore.”

“I’m aware of that. Why did you obey me?”

“Bastard.” Schuldig glowered at the beach. A mark in the sand caught his eye; a footprint that looked like a cat’s, except that it was the size of a dinner plate. That wasn’t one of their little Weiss kitties! A quick mind scan, though, showed nothing that big in the area. Maybe he was hallucinating; after being drugged to the gills for however long it took to get here, he wouldn’t be surprised. He shrugged and trudged on.

They were now out of sight and earshot of Nagi, around the bend of the shore, and Crawford turned around to face him. “Schuldig, the one to make the important decision is you. And the question is, will you accept me as your leader, or fight me?”

“Are you serious?” Schuldig gave him a sideways look. “This is where you try to blackmail me, right?”

“Not at all. That would be cheating, and besides, I didn’t see which choice will lead to the better outcome.”

Schuldig sprawled out on the sand. “Do my ears deceive me? I thought I just heard Bradley Crawford admit that he’s not all that and a twist of lime.”

“Not all of us are walking aggregations of ego.” Crawford sat on the beach beside him. “So, ask. What do you want to know to make an informed decision about me?”

Holy crap with a cherry on top. If this wasn’t a perfect opportunity he’d never see one again. There was one thing he’d wanted to do since the day he met the American, and had never been able to do. “Let me in your mind, Crawford. Let me see who you really are.” _Eat that, you stuck-up douche._

Crawford just nodded. “Very well, Schuldig. You may come in whenever you like.”

Great, now he was being sarcastic. Well, Schuldig would show him what he thought of that. He wound up to deliver a resounding whack to Crawford’s shields – 

– and slid straight into his head, with flailing startlement.


	2. Mindscape

Schuldig slid right through Crawford’s surface thoughts and landed in his mindscape with a metaphorical thud. He shook it off and prepared to open his “eyes.” He always started by looking at the mindscape floor; if he saw a carpet, that meant the subject was basically optimistic; stone or tile, cynical; and wood, somewhere in between. Anything else usually meant serious issues. The images came partly from his subject, partly from his own mind, which was why it was always a room or building of some kind. He steadied himself, focused and opened his eyes on … grass. Grass? He’d never seen that one before. 

His power supplied the meaning automatically: each green blade represented a fact that Crawford knew, and the roots were the logical relationships between them. But if that was the case … he looked up. And saw endless expanses of waving grass, stretching to the horizon in all directions. He cursed, stumbled backward, almost lost the connection. Unlike any mind he had ever entered, Crawford’s was literally too great for him to perceive all at once. It was intoxicating. Like stalking a man-eating tiger was intoxicating. Like riding a barrel over a waterfall. He lifted his illusory chin and stepped forward.

Huge trees, crystal spires, and abstract stone statues dotted the mindscape, representing Crawford’s mental axioms. Schuldig laid his hand on one of the spires and discovered that it was the theorems of calculus; just figured that math was a major part of this mind. A tree showed him the finer points of marksmanship. And then he looked up.

Up was the concept of future; most people had either a ceiling or a vague, misty mass. Crawford’s future spread upward crisply and clearly, punctuated by glowing spheres of his visions. They were falling, gradually, towards the present; as Schuldig watched, mesmerized, one drifted down to touch the grass. He suddenly saw a reflection of himself, at this moment, considering this situation. Then the sphere was gone into the realm of memory.

He shook off his fascination. He was in here for a reason, to evaluate Crawford as a person and leader. He had merely to will it, and he was at the representation of Crawford’s self-image. By this point he was not surprised to discover that it was a fountain topped by a bronze statue. To his amusement it had no glasses on; it stood in dramatic pose, gazing into the far distance. The leader of Schwartz fancied himself a visionary; that was old news. Bronze for a hard worker – a strong leader, a loyal friend. To who? The fountain water shimmered with Crawford’s emotions; some pouring from six spigots, his senses, and some bubbling up from his memories. The figure held an urn under one arm; a tiny vision sphere floated up out of it, but it passed too fast for Schuldig to perceive it.

He stuck his hand in the water. There was annoyance, of course, and satisfaction, a remarkable amount of optimism. To his jaw-dropping astonishment, he discovered that most of the time Crawford wasn’t feeling smug or superior; he just had a ba case of resting doucheface. He’d never have believed it if he wasn’t standing here. Then the more elusive feelings: friendship –what was up with that? – nostalgia, something shimmery and soft. It took him a moment to label it as peace. Most people only had a few brief flashes of it within them, if any; Crawford had gallons of it. _Damn you, Bradley, I want that!_ How dare that not-so-smug bastard be at peace with his life when Schuldig put so much energy into making him miserable? And Farf – and Nagi – and Takatori – Weiss – how was it possible?

“See something you like?” Crawford’s voice brought him sharply back to the external world, and to the fact that he was raging hard.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Crawford.” Schuldig hunched over in an attempt to conceal it. Not working; Crawford sat on the sand beside him and ran his hand down Schuldig’s back.

“I could help you with that.”

Schuldig tried to growl but it came out as a groan. Hell, why not? He wasn’t going to get laid any other way as long as they were stuck here. But what ulterior motive did Crawford have for offering? He knew better than anyone that Schuldig could not be bribed – he’d just take the money and do what he wanted. So why?

He dipped into Crawford’s mind again, this time looking for the images of people Crawford knew. Given what he’d already seen, he was not terribly surprised to appear in a sculpture garden; he was facing a marble statue of a pirate king or something, lounging half-naked on a mound of treasure. He’d been looking for himself. Was the hand in his pants throwing him off? Then he looked closer and saw that it _was_ himself; Crawford seemed to believe he was some kind of dashing rogue. He thought he was someone reliable, responsible – ha! – and capable of heroics. And he was frustrated by Schuldig’s unwillingness to live up to the potential he saw. Schuldig shook his virtual head. If only he knew. And – _he thinks I’m hot? Since when?_

Crawford appeared by his side. “Not what you expected?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’d be a poor psychic if I didn’t know my own mind.” Bastard had an answer for everything. He stepped up on the plinth of Schuldig’s statue and started kissing it. With a lot of tongue. Fuckwit. Schuldig didn’t know whether to be annoyed or turned on.

“Hello-o! I’m over here!” Crawford gave him his trademark evil smile. Without a word he stalked over, grabbed hold of his hair, and pressed their lips together. In the physical world, his mouth came down on another part of Schuldig entirely.

His startlement knocked him out of the mindscape and he opened his eyes on the bizarre sight of Crawford sucking on his cock. Since when did Herr Kapitan Crawford do anything sexual? And how had he gotten so good at this? Had he Seen how to do it? His tongue found the vein on the underside of the shaft and Schuldig lost his train of thought. He clutched at the sand as Crawford worked him, growling under his breath. Crawford squeezed his balls and he came with a grunt, spraying his juice into Crawford’s mouth. The American sat up and licked the last drops from his lips. “You have a good flavor.”

“You’re delusional, you know.” In lieu of a cigarette, Schuldig put a strand of hair between his teeth and chewed on it. “It’s too bad I’m not really the man you think I am.”

“Evidently. But are you incapable of becoming that man?” While Schuldig was still trying to think of a way to answer that, Crawford stood up and brushed himself off. “In any case, we are still going beachcombing. I’ll let you think about it.”

“Gee, thanks. What exactly are we looking for?”

“Given our current possessions, anything would be an improvement.”

“And here I was thinking you’d had a glorious vision of a shipwrecked beer tanker. Spoilsport.”


	3. Chapter 3

By evening, Crawford and Schuldig had collected a large pile of driftwood, a smaller pile of rope and netting, eight bottles (three with messages in htem), a rubber duck, and assorted odds and ends. Some of these had the potential to be useful, like the five-gallon bucket. The single size 16 running shoe, not so much. Schuldig saw a few more cat tracks but no other sign of the animal who made them.

As they trudged back along the beach with their prizes, the scent of grilled fish wafted over them. Had Nagi gotten a fire going? Schuldig’s stomach growled and hauled him forward by the esophagus. Nagi looked up as he arrived and wordlessly handed him a fish on a stick. It was, without a doubt, the best meal he had ever eaten; too bad he didn’t have a nice riesling to go with it. Farf had found some chunks of obsidian, and he was splitting off pieces with a rock and giggling. Schuldig looked sideways at him; the giggling was new, and he liked his psychopaths nice and predictable. He’d had enough shocks today already.

Crawford, eating his dinner with a great deal more decorum than Schuldig, said, “Nagi, would you calm Farf down tonight?”

“Of course.”

Schuldig had seen the results of Nagi’s secret Farf-taming technique, which was remarkably effective. He’d never been curious about what Nagi did, but in this place he was forced to find entertainment where he could. He’d like to spend more time browsing through Crawford’s mindscape, but he didn’t think the American would stand for that. When Nagi floated Farf into the bushes, Schuldig was all ready to follow along with his mind.

As usual, Crawford had other ideas. “Schuldig, we are going to build a shelter.”

Oh, were they? “Why bother? The weather’s fine.”

“And it will not remain so.”

Well, that was just the cherry on the shit sundae. Schuldig was about to make a rude gesture and tell Crawford he wasn’t going to slog around building anything … _are you incapable of becoming that man?_ Schuldig grunted and got up. Manipulative bastard; he firmly told his subconscious to fuck off, and went to help Crawford lash together their collection of sticks and palm leaves.

He was balancing on the ridgepole of the … hovel … tying down a row of fronds when an earsplitting howl pierced the night. He fell off and landed butt-first on the sand; Crawford dropped his stick. “I don’t think that’s Farf,” Schuldig said.

“Indeed not. Can you sense the source?”

“Nope.” That kind of freaked him out. An animal large enough to make that noise – like a really, really big cat – should be plainly visible to his telepathy. Nothing. “Did you see anything?”

“No.” Dickwad.

Schuldig shivered. This island was cursed, that was the problem. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to; Crawford’s not-smugness, Farf giggling, giant freaking invisible cats.

“Are you frightened?” asked Crawford.

“Yeah, will you kiss it and make it better?” He was suddenly flat on his back in the sand while Crawford devoured his lips. Damn, he hadn’t expected him to take him up on it. And what he was doing with that tongue … _what were we talking about again?_ Schuldig’s hands stirred the sand and his eyes rolled back in his head. When Crawford let go, he made a tiny noise of protest.

“What, you want more?”

“Most people know you’re supposed to finish what you start, Crawford.” To his disappointment, wild monkey sex did not ensue. Instead, Crawford smirked slightly and lay on the sand to view the stars. A brush against his surface thoughts showed that he was already neck-deep in equations. Math freak.

Schuldig remembered that there was someone else to eavesdrop on, and sent his mind looking for Nagi and Farf. He didn’t want to go into the Irishman’s mind; the last time he’d been in there, it was paved with slabs of meat. Yuck. Nagi’s mind, on the other hand, was fairly normal. He visualized it as a movie screen, created a bowl of mental popcorn, and sat back to enjoy the show.

Nagi had Farf’s clothes off and was using his powers to hold him against a tree; that was always a good start. The Irishman was hard, and that was because Nagi was stroking him with his powers. _Hey, how come he’s getting some and I’m not?_ Schuldig opened a (very light) link to Farf’s mind to find out just what was happening.

_Waves of feather-light pressure rippled up his cock, making him press back against the force holding him. A phantom hand pulled his balls away from his body, while another squeezed his nipples. He gasped and growled; the invisible touch circled his hole, then stretched him open –_

Nagi noticed the intrusion and gave Schuldig a mental shove that knocked him on his metaphorical ass. So the kid didn’t like to be watched, eh? He filed that away for future reference. Now he knew why Farf calmed down so easily; he was hard for the second time today, but since Crawford was still off in calculus-land he would have to take matters into his own hands.

No sooner had he gripped his cock than another cat-howl echoed through the night and made him wilt at once. Scheisse! A minute later Farf’s deep bellow rang out; a psychic surge told him that Nagi had gotten off as well. No luck, no luck at all. He needed a drink, or some interesting tropical leaves. He gathered a few handfuls from the forest edge, and then reconsidered. He’d better feed them to Farf first, just in case.

Thwarted, he walked back to the half-finished shelter and decided to look at those message bottles. Smashing the neck off one, he took out the yellow paper and read: **Special offer! GPS and depth finders, only 299.99** … he turned the paper over. _Swept off course by storm, fifty miles south of Maui. No inhabitants. Boat OK, engine gone. Trying to rig sail._ Lucky bastard got a boat. Number two was written on pink notepaper with stars: _im on a dessert iland sumwun save me I lost my teddy._ He didn’t even know if that one was real. The third one couldn’t possibly be real, because it was typed on crisp white paper. _Hello, Schuldig._ He rubbed his eyes and looked again. _Hello, Schuldig. I know your situation is not to your liking, but don’t worry, it’s temporary. If you don’t believe me, you will find a bottle of rum buried two meters to your left. – A._

The hairs stood up on the back of Schuldig’s neck. First invisible giant cats, and now this. He chewed on his hair. He rubbed his hands on his knees. And then, because he just couldn’t stand it, he paced out two meters left and started digging.


	4. Schuldig can't take it anymore

The rum mocked him. Over the next week the assassins settled into their camp; they improved the shelter, found new food sources, and managed not to slaughter each other. Farf chipped out enough obsidian blades that the others could borrow some for their own use. Schuldig used his to shave. And Crawford still refused to go beyond first base, and the bottle of rum sat, unopened, on the end of a log and laughed at him inanimately.

He had had enough. Liquor he couldn’t drink, a sexy bastard he couldn’t lay – he didn’t trust that bottle to be un-tampered-with, but the other thing he could do something about. After feeding Farf his morning mystery leaves, he waved goodbye to Nagi and strode off into the jungle to look for Dr. Livingstone – that is, Bradley Crawford.

Fortunately for his peace of mind, the invisible cats seemed to be nocturnal. Nothing else on the island was as potentially dangerous; there was plenty of weirdness, though. Such as a tree frog emblazoned with the Eszet logo which none of them wanted to touch, vines that constricted to catch anything that stepped in them, and some very nimble goat-antelope-deer things. The latter at least answered the question of what the giant cats ate, other than unwilling tourists.

Crawford had discovered all of these after turning from astronomy to biology. He had a series of cage traps and snares set in the woods, and Schuldig found him at one of them. “Ah, Schuldig. Just who I wanted to see.” As if there were that many people to see around here. Crawford was holding a bird; it looked like a bright blue pheasant and it sounded like a car with bad brakes. “Can you read this? It’s giving me a psychic push, but I can’t tell what it’s supposed to do.”

Now it was psychic birds? Distracted from his mission, Schuldig reached into the pheasant’s mind. An animal’s mindscape was much simpler than a human’s, so he quickly found what he wanted. “It’s a cockatrice,” he reported. “It’s a goddamn cockatrice! If we weren’t shielded it would freeze us in place until we pass out.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

“Makes sense? How the fuck does a cockatrice on a desert island make sense?”

“Obviously Eszet uses this place as a dumping ground for their cast-offs.” Crawford let go of the bird, and it scuttled off into the shrubbery. “That animal is a near-perfect nonlethal weapon, except for the noise. But I don’t think you came out here to discuss the wildlife.”

Damned non-smug precog bastard. “I’m tired of you leading me on. Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Crawford’s glasses flashed, and he gave his all-knowing Oracle smirk. In the next moment Schuldig was slammed against a tree trunk while Crawford nibbled at his lips. By pure instinct Schuldig pushed back with his mind, and once again fell headlong into Crawford’s mindscape. Crawford’s avatar was there to meet him, pushed him down into the grass, banished his clothes with a mere exercise of will. In the material world, one hand undid Schuldig’s shirt buttons while the other found the sensitive hairline at the back of his neck. Schuldig gasped into Crawford’s lips; Crawford took the opportunity to slide his tongue between his teeth. Schuldig’s hands shook as he tried to take off Crawford’s shirt without tearing it – which the American would not appreciate, it being the only one he had. He wasn’t getting very far; by the time he’d gotten three buttons, Crawford had opened his shirt all the way and pulled off his pants and shorts. They were getting tight anyway.

In the mindscape they were both already naked. Crawford held Schuldig pinned against the “ground;” the grass came to life underneath him, stroking his back and shoulders, buttocks and thighs. Crawford straddled his hips, not quite touching his … In the jungle, Crawford pulled Schuldig’s shirt off his arms and then held his wrists over his head. With his free hand Crawford finished undressing himself … bastard. Schuldig wanted to put his fingers all over that muscled chest and firm stomach. But Crawford captured his lips again, and he was just a little distracted. Oracle’s shaft came into view; he was just as hung in the real world as in his mind. That was rarely the case, but Crawford was a realist – and oh so deliciously. Schuldig arched his back, their lengths brushed together, and lightning crawled up Schuldig’s spine to his brain.

He had never been this turned on before. Oh, he’d been horny, he’d gone out and picked someone up, male or female; seduced them, or manipulated a particularly pretty one into sleeping with him. He’d always taken what he wanted. But Crawford had played him, and it was _hot._

Not to mention the vast mindscape, larger than any he’d encountered even in Rozenkreuz, which was a turn on all by itself. He lay on his back in the grass and stared at the dark vision-speckled “sky.” Crawford bit and licked at his nipples – in the jungle, Crawford released his wrists and ran fingers down his ribs – in the grass, a hand wrapped around his sac – in the jungle, Crawford lifted him up to straddle his waist. Later Schuldig would resent how thoroughly he had lost control of the situation; right now he was enjoying himself too much to care.

Crawford produced a shell full of coconut cream from nowhere and started slicking up Schuldig’s hole. In the mindscape, his mouth engulfed Schuldig’s cock. Schuldig could no longer quite distinguish which stimulus was physical and which was mental. He clutched at Crawford’s shoulders/hair as he fingered/sucked him. He threw back his head and howled. In the mindscape, Crawford straddled him again; in the jungle, his fingers withdrew. He thrust in – he sank down – Schuldig screamed as Crawford rode him hard, inside and out. His climax rolled over him like a typhoon; he felt Crawford shudder within/around him. He panted for breath. Physical Crawford lowered him to the ground; mindscape-Crawford leaned down and said, “Gotcha.”

“Heh.”

“And now that I have you I’ll never let you go.”

“You’re one of those possessive types, aren’t you?”

“Come on, like you’ve ever had anyone better than me.”

“Hmph.” Crawford was right, as usual, but Schuldig wasn’t going to say that to his face. He lay in the jungle dirt a while longer, until he noticed how many sticks were underneath him; he got up and found his clothes. Crawford, of course, was already fully dressed. “You went and made me hungry. I’m going to get some lunch.” He headed back towards camp, ignoring Crawford who walked along silently behind him.

As he got closer, he could smell the distinctive smell of cooked seafood. Nagi must have got back from fishing already. He emerged from the trees, though, to find that Nagi was nowhere in sight and that Farf was the one stirring the campfire with a stick. The Irishman looked up at their approach. “Morning, Schuldig, Crawford. Would you like some clambake?”

Schuldig blinked at this coherent, polite, grammatically correct sentence. “What the bloody fuck?”


	5. Magical leaves

“What the bloody fuck?”

Crawford merely said, “Remarkable.” Bizarro-Farf dug through the embers and turned up some palm-leaf packets. Crawford took one without hesitation; Schuldig wasn’t so sure. He dipped cautiously into Farf’s mindscape; the last time he’d been in there, the floor had been paved with oozing meat. Disgusting. Now the floor was perfectly orderly flagstone. Looking around, the environment was still a church interior, but it had lost the looming shadows and blood splatters. Schuldig retreated into his own skull, more than a little creeped out. “Uh … so how are you today, Farf.”

“Very well, thank you.”

Schuldig chose not to dignify that with a response. Invisible giant cats, screeching cockatrices, hidden bottles of rum, de-bastardized Crawford, and now de-psychoed Farf. It all made sense now: this island had the power to alter personalities. Soon Nagi would turn into a beer-swilling jock, and then Schuldig would become a boring, complacent, prudish nerd!

While Schuldig contemplated his horrible fate, Crawford said, “Farf, you seem remarkably, er,”

“Rational?”

“Indeed.” Crawford plucked a clam from its shell and tossed the halves in the fire. Farf took another parcel and started doing the same.

“I think it’s the leaves,” he said. He pulled one off a branch next to him and chewed on it; Schuldig recognized that morning’s mystery plant. “About half an hour after I ate them, I was suddenly like this. They don’t taste half bad either.”

And if they could pull Farf out of the loony bin in only one dose, they had to be some good shit. Schuldig thought about trying one, but there was no telling what those would do to a normal person. He asked, “So what does Nagi think?”

Farf leered. “Oh, he thinks it’s fantastic.” He tossed a clamshell into the flames and continued, “Guess I’ll have to take up gardening. Now I’ve tried it, I kind of like sanity.”

“If we ever get out of this place, hire the kitties to do it for you,” Schuldig suggested. Farf flipped him off.

Crawford put in, “Are you going to turn atheist?”

“Nah, I still believe in God, I just hate his guts. Maybe I’ll become a Satanist.”

“Helter skelter,” Schuldig muttered. He could get to like this new Farf. And those clams smelled good …

Just then Nagi returned to camp with his foraging bucket. Farf blew him a kiss, and he blushed; as he unloaded his finds he said, “You two didn’t manage to bring back anything, did you?”

“We got sidetracked,” Schuldig said. “I’m surprised you got anything. I hear you and Farf got frisky this morning.”

Nagi just blushed darker. Farf answered, “We had to stop because I was sore.” Schuldig thought that Nagi would burst a blood vessel from sheer embarrassment. Luckily, Crawford changed the subject away from their respective love lives.

“These are some unusual eggs.” Which was an understatement; they were a little smaller than chicken eggs, and they were striped pink and white like peppermint candy.

“I’ll bet they’re cockatrice eggs,” said Schuldig.

“Probably.”

“Cockatrice?” asked Nagi. Crawford briefly explained about the psychic bird he’d trapped, and added, “I have found what appears to be a mango tree, and I have an idea of how to trap those antelopes. Farf, if you would boil the eggs, please, and Schuldig, come with me.”

He wasn’t finished his clams, but hey, this was a chance to get laid again! Schuldig gave his leftovers to Nagi and followed Crawford into the woods. Of course Crawford was serious about building that trap; he directed Schuldig to hang up pieces of fishing net to make a chute, while he dug a pit using an old plank. Without his shirt on. Mm-mm. Schuldig finished his task as quickly as he could – see, he could be diligent with the right incentive – then wandered over to feast his eyes on Crawford’s chiseled and sweat-streaked back. His pants tightened; if he ever got a chance to sign a new contract, he’d have to insist on Crawford nudity as one of his benefits. The American set down his makeshift shovel and ran a hand through his hair; Schuldig’s cock twitched. He was so distracted that when Crawford pounced on him and dragged him away through the trees, he didn’t manage a reaction until he was already flat on his back in a patch of moss.

“Hey, why are you so horny all of a sudden?”

“I’ve been this horny all along,” Crawford replied. His hands opened Schuldig’s pants and pulled them to his knees. “I just have more patience than you.”

“What the –” Schuldig struggled to form a coherent answer while strong fingers massaged his balls. “You mean you were leading me on the whole time?”

“Mm-hm.” Crawford sucked on his ear. “I had to make you think you wanted it more than I did.”

“Fuckwit.”

Crawford licked up the side of his neck. “Why didn’t you try to read my mind?”

_I don’t know, because you’d never let me?_ But a light probe revealed that Crawford’s mind was, indeed, open to him. This time he stepped gracefully into the mindscape and appeared right beside the central fountain. He took a moment to wiggle his toes in the grass – grass! It was still beyond bizarre. Meanwhile, Crawford was teasing his nipple with a thumbnail. He looked at the fountain with its bronze statue and decided it was time for some payback.

He stepped right into the water and climbed up on the plinth, which put his head on a level with the statue’s crotch. Excellent. He licked at the bulge in the metal; his physical ears told him that Crawford groaned. The bronze bulge grew in reflection of reality. He flipped Crawford over on the moss and matched his physical actions with his mental ones, rubbing his face on the cloth of Crawford’s shorts. He pulled down the zipper with his teeth; at the same time he opened the pants on the statue. Mindscapes were so much fun. Two cocks presented themselves in his perceptions, one of gleaming bronze and one of hot, musky flesh. He wasted no time engulfing both of them with his lips.

Crawford briefly retained enough presence of mind to slide a finger into Schuldig’s body, but he quickly lost all control. Schuldig discovered that when he did certain things with is tongue he could make that finger twitch inside him. Bonus for him! He sank down on the bronze cock as he pulled back on the meaty one, alternating strokes; Crawford was obviously getting off on the whole mind-fuck side of it.

So he stopped moving in the physical world and focused all his attention on the jutting bronze shaft. He lapped at the head. He stroked the vein. He deep throated and swallowed around it. In the physical world, Crawford’s cock pumped Schuldig’s mouth of its own accord. A tremor shook the mindscape, and the bronze cock shot into his lips a fluid of pure sensation, sharing all that Crawford was feeling at that moment. At the same moment, his material cock coated Schuldig’s mouth with seed. Schuldig was so aroused he couldn’t control himself; he lunged up and pressed his tip into Crawford’s mouth, and seized his wrist to jam his finger into his sweet spot. He cried out and unloaded his balls onto Crawford’s tongue.

After that he could barely move. His material body lay sprawled beside Crawford on the moss; in the mindscape he was draped over the fountain’s edge, trailing one hand in the water. This way he could feel Crawford’s weird but pleasant sense of peace. There was even more of it in his mind than before; you’d almost think he liked being alone on an island with his teammates.

The statue still held an urn under its arm. Suddenly, as Schuldig watched, a huge vision bubble popped out of it. He tried to catch it, but not being a precog, he missed and dropped the link. He was catapulted back into his own mind. “What did you see?”

“Another message from the mysterious A.” Crawford stood and hitched up his pants. “Come on, we should collect the others before digging it up.”


	6. The Magic Box

Crawford tore through the camp like a whirlwind, somehow picking up their teammates on the way. Luckily both of them were clothed. Farf asked, “What’s going on?” as they fell in step behind him.

“He Saw something,” Schuldig grumbled. Crawford was so annoying when he got like this. He got an idea in his head and charged straight into it until he got the result he wanted; it tended to reduce Schuldig’s chances for making mischief. In this case, he led the team deep into the island, finally stopping at a small waterfall.

“Somewhere within earshot of this waterfall there are four trees planted in a perfect square. We will spread out and search; whoever finds it, call for the others.”

So he didn’t know what he was doing quite yet. Schuldig shrugged and strolled off to his left. Maybe he’d find another bottle of rum and finally figure out if the stuff was safe to drink. He startled a cockatrice out of the bushes and amused himself by chasing it around while it tried to stone him. Eventually he bounced its effect back at it; the bird promptly froze in place. He grinned and turned it upside down. He was nominally looking for the square of trees, but really he could have more fun hunting down more cockatrices and making them freeze themselves. He collected half a dozen of them and stacked them into a nifty modernist sculpture.

A rustle in the undergrowth drew his eye; his sculpture could use a centerpiece. He stepped towards it, then noticed that he couldn’t hear a bird’s mind there. Maybe it was a really big bug? He stuck his head in the thicket – and came face to face with a snarling, grey-striped mass of fur. The cat growled. Schuldig did the sensible thing and screamed like a little girl, hastily backing away.

It followed him. As it came out into the open, he saw that it was marked in black and grey, striped in front and spotted in the back. Its paws were the size of dinner plates, its head was eye level with his own, and its body was as long as a car. A mean car. It was also wrapped in a mind shield unlike anything he’d ever seen, one that made the cat utterly invisible to his psychic senses. Unfortunately, he didn’t need to read its mind to know what it wanted to do.

He considered climbing a tree, but none of the branches he could see were both strong enough to hold him and out of the beast’s reach. He pulled out his stone knife – much good it would do him. Crawford, Farf and Nagi came rushing into the clearing in response to his earlier scream. Just for effect, he bellowed, “It’s gonna eat me!”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Crawford said. Cold-blooded too-calm precog bastard. Then he whispered, “Nobody gets to eat you but me.”

Okay, not so cold-blooded. Schuldig grinned and hefted his knife. “What’s the plan?”

“Nagi, can you hold it in place?”

The kid frowned for a moment. “Its mind shield is blocking me.” Could a mind shield do that?

“In that case, try to get sand in its eyes. Farf, take point; Schuldig and I will back you up.”

It was a familiar setup. They’d done this a thousand times, though not usually against a giant psychic cat armed only with flint knives. Dust swirled up from the ground just as the cat sprang at Schuldig’s throat; he was finally able to use his speed to dodge.

The cat squalled and pawed at its face when the dust got into its eyes. Farf waded in from the side, an obsidian dagger in each hand, another in his teeth, and more tucked into his belt. He leapt onto its back and grabbed one ear for balance, slashing at the other one. The cat rolled over to dislodge him; he calmly stepped aside and stabbed it in the paw.

Crawford had picked up a long stick and quickly lashed his knife to it. Using this improvised spear, he was poking at the cat’s head to distract it. Nagi added rocks and bits of wood to his assault, enraging and confusing the beast further. And as for Schuldig, he snuck up behind and stomped on its tail.

The cat roared and stood up on its hind legs; Farf saw his chance. He slipped under its massive paw, used its hind knee as a step, and hooked one arm around its chin. Its claws raked his back but he ignored them; he pulled himself up and drove his dagger straight into the cat’s eye. The beast roared, coughed, and finally toppled over, bringing Farf down with it.

As if a dumb beast stood any chance against a world-class team of assassins. Schuldig said, “Brain shot, sweet.”

“It’s good to be sane,” Farf answered. “I want the skull for a trophy.”

“Can I have the claws?” added Nagi.

“Hey, while we’re at it, I want to skin it to make a love rug.” Schuldig leered at Crawford. “What do you think?”

“That would be entertaining.” Which was Crawford-speak for, _I want to throw you down and have wild caveman sex._ Ignoring Schuldig’s smirk, he continued, “In the meantime, I think I’ve found the spot we were looking for. We’ll bring the animal along.”

Nagi lifted the cat carcass; now that it was dead, it was no longer blocking his powers. Several minutes (and three cockatrices) later, they were standing inside a group of trees which looked completely ordinary except for growing in a perfect square. “So this is it, huh?” said Schuldig. “What now?”

“We dig.” Crawford picked up his “shovel,” which he’d apparently dropped here before the fight, and drove it into the ground. Schuldig grabbed the spear to help him. With all four of them digging, especially Nagi, they soon uncovered a large steel crate. Well, that sure wasn’t natural. Crawford pushed his glasses up his nose with his finger, then stepped into the pit and popped the top.

“Sweet!”

“Heheh, Santa Claus thinks we’ve been good little boys.”

“If I have to thank God for this I’m going to puke.”

“Don’t worry, Farf, God is not the responsible party.” Crawford lifted an envelope from the top of the treasure trove. “Let’s hear what our benefactor has to say.”

_Greetings, members of Schwarz_ (the message read). _You will be glad to hear that you will not be on this island much longer. We have packed a number of items to make the rest of your stay more comfortable, as well as assist in your escape._ (No kidding.) _I believe you will be seeking new employment on your return; our organization is willing to offer your team a contract, provided you are willing to change sides._ (Say what?) _We will be waiting for you when you arrive. Also, thank you for watching over my sister while she was –_

“Let me see that!” Schuldig yanked the paper out of Crawford’s hands. It wasn’t possible! This island had finally driven him insane! “Nagi, do you see what I see?”

“It’s signed Abyssinian,” the kid said. So he hadn’t gone insane; it was the whole planet that had fallen off its axis, and Cthulhu had damn well better eat him quickly or there would be words. Nagi went on, “it says, _PS, enjoy your rug._ ”

“Urrrg.” Schuldig slumped down on the ground and laid his forehead on his knees. Katana Kitty, a precog? An untrained one, or he’d have picked up on it, but still …

Crawford said, “I must admit I’m surprised, but it explains much about his behavior … and his stubbornness.” There was the unmistakable sound of a magazine sliding into a handgun. “We might as well take advantage of this recruitment bribe.”

And what a bribe it was. After weeks of scrounging for scraps of food and living in a pile of logs, it was the next thing to Nirvana. At the top of the crate were weapons: guns for Crawford and Schuldig, short swords for Farf, and drugged darts for Nagi – the exact same ones that Bombay used to use. If this was some kind of mind job, it was a thorough one. Underneath those were changes of clothing for each of them, along with – oh joy – toothpaste. Then came what could only be called treats. Cans of pasta and beef stew. A laptop for Nagi. CDs. A GPS unit. A case of Guinness (Farf got teary-eyed). A hatchet, saw and some nails. Rope. Popcorn. Two large bottles of lube (Nagi blushed) and a set of handcuffs (Crawford just smirked). Half fun, half useful – there was even a bottle of “fur tanning fluid” for when they skinned their cat. And at the bottom of the crate there was a box of balloons and a map.

As Schuldig tried to figure out why the Kitties would send them balloons, Crawford unfolded the map. “Well, well, well.” He laid it out for the others to look at; it was a complete map of the island, with three red Xs drawn on it. One for their camp, one for this spot, and one in the water a short way off the shore. “I think this bears examining.” 

“Whatever, we can do it tomorrow. Tonight we have beer.”


	7. Escaping

The first order of business was building a raft. Scratch that, the first order of business was enjoying the relative lack of hangover resulting from an evening of beer and roasted cockatrice (and yes, they did taste like chicken). Since Nagi didn’t drink and Crawford, who was a dork, only had one, Schuldig and Farf had split the rest of the case between them. Glorious alcohol, without which the world was a dull and barren place. The second order of business was building a raft so that they could reach the spot marked on the map.

Abyssinian – if it really was him – had kindly provided them an axe, so the job was easier than most things he’d tried to do on this island, and that included Crawford. They made a bamboo deck about two meters square and added a rock anchor at the end of one of their salvaged ropes. At Crawford’s direction, Schuldig and Farf paddled the raft and dropped the anchor over their target, then swam back to shore for lunch. At this point Schuldig realized that he’d forgotten to complain about the work even once. This freaky island was making him more responsible in spite of himself! The sooner they escaped, the better.

“So what do you think is down there?” He asked over his dish of coconut-cockatrice salad.

“Who knows?” Nagi shrugged. “If the letter is telling the truth it’s something to help us escape. Maybe a transmitter or something.”

“I’ll bet it’s bicycles,” Farf remarked. Now that would suck. Crawford just looked at them with his I-know-something-you-don’t-know smirk.

Well, if he had that expression on it couldn’t be all bad. “Maybe it’s a magic dragon who’ll grant us three wishes and teleport us back to Tokyo.”

“The way this island is, it would probably eat us first.” Farf rose, settled his knives in his belt – some things never changed, he had all the stone ones as well as his new steel – and strolled down the beach with his hands in his pockets. This time all four of them stripped down and swam to the raft. After a brief interlude of sunbathing (Crawford), ogling (Schuldig) and fish-chasing (Farf), they settled down to examine the area. The brilliantly clear water gave them a perfect view of the sea floor, revealing … absolutely nothing.

“It’s buried in the sand,” Crawford said, and dove off the edge of the raft. Schuldig sighed and followed him; he heard two splashes as Farf and Nagi did, too. The next ten minutes or so were a cycle of dig a small hole, keep an eye out for sharks, go up for air, go back down and dig another hole. Schuldig was on his third hole when he hit something. He scraped away more sand, uncovering a section of blue plastic tarp. That couldn’t be there by accident. _I think I found it_ , he sent over their link. Crawford motioned for everyone to surface; they caught their breaths and examined the now less-than-pristine sand.

Schuldig pointed out his hole and Nagi reached down with his power to carefully move the sand aside. A tarp-covered shape emerged, rounded at one end and pointed at the other, with a long, narrow ridge bisecting it … “It’s a boat!” Farf exclaimed.

Duh. Nagi cleared off the rest of the sand and they all went down to unwrap the tarp. Under it was a sporty thirty-foot sailboat with its mast laid against its deck and the name _Bad Kitty_ painted on the stern. It was also, of course, full of water.

“It’s too heavy for me to lift,” Nagi said once they were back on the raft.

“It won’t do us much good in Davy Jones’ locker,” Farf said. “I don’t think the kitties would go to all this trouble and not leave a way to raise it.”

“The balloons! There were like a thousand of them in the crate. We can use those to float it.” Schuldig felt proud of himself for figuring that out. The only problem was that the balloons were back at their campsite.

“In any case, it’s time to start making dinner,” Crawford said. “Let’s return to shore and continue this in the morning.” And naturally that’s what they ended up doing. Damn precog.

*** 

“The bow is starting to float,” Crawford announced, leaning his elbows on the raft.

“That’s – hfff – just great – hfff.” Schuldig tied off the latest balloon and pressed it to the water’s surface, where Nagi’s power caught it and pulled it under. The kid was sitting in the middle of the raft with a palm-leaf hat shading his head, his eyes closed as he focused all his attention on sinking balloons and stuffing them into the boat’s hull. On the other side of the raft, Farf was busy inflating latex as well. Schuldig had lost count of all the balloons they’d filled; he’d never spent so much time blowing and enjoyed it so little. Crawford managing to look suave and dignified while soaking wet and wearing only his shorts wasn’t helping. 

If one end of the thing was floating, though, that meant that they were almost done. Even stakeouts weren’t this boring. He picked up another balloon and tried to ignore his sunburned back; he must have zoned out for a while, because the next thing he registered was the glub … glorp of Bad Kitty coming to the surface. “Great, now we have to bail the thing out,” he grumbled.

“We still need a few more balloons to get the hatch clear,” Crawford said.

“Fuck.”

Through some miracle, they had the boat fully afloat and bailed out by evening, and used the oars thoughtfully lashed to the deck to get it to the beach. Which led to that night’s entertainment: getting rid of all those balloons by throwing knives at them. That made Schuldig feel a whole lot better. “Take that, you latex sonofabitch! Die, airbag!”

Abyssinian had packed the boat with even more useful gear – such as sails – in waterproof bags. But more importantly from Schuldig’s point of view, it had beds. And a kitchen. And a toilet – okay, it was one of those hand-cranked maritime ones, but he wept tears of joy when he saw it. Over the next two days, he and Farf got the Bad Kitty rigged and floating, Nagi collected food for the trip, and Crawford worked out where they were going. Typical pre-op work, pretty much. For souvenirs they had the giant cat skin, half a dozen cockatrices in a wicker cage, and Farf’s magic bushes in pots – not to mention all his stone knives. Farf refused to give them up.

They spent their last evening aboard the boat – mattresses, what luxury – and were up at the dawn. Nagi pulled up the anchor and Farf set the sails. As they floated out with the tide, Crawford stood up and cleared his throat. “I believe this occasion calls for a few words.” He turned to face the island and bellowed, “Fuck you, Eszet!”

“Fuck you, Eszet!” echoed the others, making the appropriate hand gesture. Bad Kitty was on her way.


End file.
